The Private Sea, William Braden

[novapsyche]

The Private Sea: LSD and the Search for God. Published originally in 1967.

I skipped around and began with the last chapter--chapter 13. Give it a read. It's mind-opening stuff.

Comments

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

it is interesting. but as i read it, i got a wrong feeling... especially when he divided it into opimists and pemissmists. i admit, i didnt spend as much time reading it carefully as i did skimming and thinking and then skimming some more... but all the same, i got a feeling that this author approaches the material from a 'western' pov, where the universe is taken forgranted as a fragmented mess, with each piece carefully labeled. if one takes it from that perspective, one has already alienated the other; one cannot discuss the 'optimists' in any intelligible way.

indeed, he addressed them, but did not examine how different his article would be, if he took their perspective.

to suggest a goal in the first place is to preclude a segmented loci, is to locate us in the picture. rather for 'optimists', it is not a repetition of the past, rather there is no past, only either, a continual whole, or merely change.

all the same though, i found his opening discussion, and for the most part true. foucault does however, recognize more than one history. for instance, the idea of time as a progression is an enlightenment timeline. the idea of time as an unmittigated whole differentated by an end event is both a marxist and a judeo-christian timeline. the idea of time as cyclic is the argricultural (pluralistic) timeline.

i am a bit confused however, as to why he started with sex and the family unit. really, that only began in the 1950s with the availablity of cheap american track housing, im not so certain it is a 'western' thing.